Thanks for your comments, Aneesa! You are right on course with the elements of effective learning groups. I haven't heard the term "synergy" in awhile and it is so important. When true synergy happens in the learning group setting, as participants are working through an assignment, project, or issue, solutions result that may be completely different from any of the individual contributions. What a wonderful result! True, a mismatch of skills or personalities can undermine a group's progress, though it is a "dose of real medicine," so to speak, as representative of the workplace. As we help students work through this, perhaps they are developing critical workpalce skills as well as the subject areas at hand. Jay Hollowell ED106 Facilitator